Between The Moments
by daenabenjen42
Summary: From a baby, to a destroyed world, to a wedding, to a revelation...
1. From The Shadows

Title: From the Shadows (Between the Moments series #1)  
Timeframe: During Edge of Victory: Rebirth (tail end of it, actually)  
Characters: Mara Jade Skywalker, with references to Luke and Ben  
Summary: Upon the birth of her son, Mara thinks about the choices she's made that led her to this point.  
Note: This was my first foray into SW fic, written October 19, 2005.

* * *

I've always been in the shadows. I was comfortable there. I was an unknown, willing to stop at nothing to serve my master. Even kill.

And then the world changed around me and everything I knew crumbled away until all that was left was me. Standing in the harsh light of day.

And I changed.

So many changes were gone through by the time I finally met him for the first time. The one who changed my world.

I wanted to kill him, of course. Wanted him to know my pain. My grief. To feel the loneliness that had been thrust upon me so suddenly. To do to him what he had done to me.

And so, upon this meeting with a man whom I detested and loathed, I began to change again. I didn't like it... I didn't embrace it... I didn't understand it.

And what started out as hate and grief, slowly, ever so slowly, became a sort of friendship... then denile... and longing... and then love.

And my loneliness became togetherness.

And my pain became joy.

And all it took was a choice between what that voice in my head was telling me to do, or the right thing to do.

A choice to rescue a man I thought hated with a passion from certain death in the void of space.

A choice to follow him into the jungle or let him go.

A choice to trust him.

To be his friend.

To love him.

To become his wife.

And you know something?

Looking down at our son as I hold him in my arms and look into his gray eyes for the first time, and feel the love well up inside myself that makes the pain of labor a distant memory... I'm glad I made the right ones.

Fini


	2. Nothing But Rubble

Title: Nothing But Rubble (Between the Moments series #2)  
Timeframe: end of ANH  
Characters: Leia Organa  
Warning: Angst  
Notes: written October 20, 2005.

* * *

They destroyed it.

Without so much as a thought about the people... or the history... or the priceless things that were irreplaceable. That made it home.

It was my home.

They were my people.

My family.

My friends.

People I've never met and now never will.

Places I've visited, places I've lived, places that, even now, I can see in my mind's eye even as I stand here on another world and listen to sounds that seem familiar.

Sounds that I remember from home that will never be heard again.

Gone... in an instant.

Gone because someone gave the order.

Gone because the order was obeyed and buttons were pushed, and levers were pulled, and a process was started inside a targeting computer.

Gone in an instant of green light and fiery destruction.

And all I could do was stand there and watch as my world exploded into millions of pieces.

And I know one thing as I stand here on a stage and watch as two men and a wookiee walk toward me in military fashion... as long as I live, I'll never forgive it.

I will never forgive the empire for the lives they have destroyed, for the people who have died because they spoke their minds, or, now, for the planet they have destroyed.

They are going to pay for it.

All of it.

And I'm going to see to it that they do.

* * *

Fini


	3. The Dark Lord Cometh

**Title**: The Dark Lord Cometh (Between the Moments series #3)  
**Character**: Obi-Wan Kenobi  
**Time Line**: during ANH  
**Genre**: angst  
**Summary**: Obi-wan goes forth to meet his destiny.  
**Note**: Had a hard time with this due to silly computer problem. Enjoy.

* * *

For twenty years, I've waited for this moment.

But I waited and I watched.

For twenty years.

I waited for this moment.

To mend a mistake. To face my failure.

To know and see what could be lost and what could be gained.

To finally see and face the one I left behind on that burning planet so long ago.

And now the moment is here. It's not like I thought it would be... and yet it is, at the same time.

And I don't want to do this.

There is so much left to do. To teach the boy.

But I know the moment is here. There is no backing away.

There is no retreat.

To retreat would be to admit defeat.

And I can not do that.

I must face this. I must face him.

I know he still hates me.

I know I will lose.

And I know something else as he walks toward me with that glowing, red saber.

The dark lord cometh.

Fini

* * *

Written: November 24, 2005


	4. To Hope For More

Title: To Hope for More (Between the Moments series #4)  
Character: Han Solo  
Time line: end of Courtship of Princess Leia

* * *

I was so intent on leaving, getting out, that I didn't see what was right in front of me.

I never had a real friend before, besides Chewie.

But I stayed.

For a kid from a backwards desert world.

For a woman from a destroyed planet with a passion that inspired me to hope for more.

With beautiful eyes.

Who, at times, makes me want to kill her... and long to touch her hair and whisper in her ear.

I was going to leave.

I had every reason to leave.

Everything inside me was saying to get out while the going was good.

I was nearly to the hyperspace jump point before I listened to the little voice that was saying all was not lost, before I turned the ship around and went back.

And, as I stand here, preparing to say my vows and watching the kid walk in late... I'm glad I didn't leave while the going was good.

I'm glad.

It was worth every second to stay and fight for the dream.

Fini

* * *

Written: November 26, 2005


	5. Truth and Betrayal

Title: Truth and Betrayal (Between the Moments series #5)  
Character: Luke Skywalker  
Time Line: ESB  
Notes: ...ever write something and then procede to forget about it until talking about the subject of favorite characters with somebody? That's what this one was. I mentioned I'd written a Luke piece, and the person immediately demanded to see it, which led to typing it out and posting it.

Date Typed Out: November 28, 2005

* * *

Ben lied to me.

I don't believe it. I don't want to believe it.

How could that man be my father?

My father is dead, isn't he?

That's what my uncle said. That my father died.

And yet,Â there he stood; clad in black armor, hand outstrechted, proclaiming to be someone he shouldn't be.

I don't want to believe it.

Because...

I want to believe that my father died.

Because now I understand why my uncle refused to talk about it and my aunt always looked at me with an expression I didn't understand.

And if Ben lied to me about my father, well, he must have had a reason.

I don't want to believe it.

It's so totally unbelievable.

I don't want to even think it.

But in the end, all I can do is sink down into the chair and watch as the stars blur and the ship blasts into hyperspace.

"Ben, why didn't you tell me?"


	6. Symphony of Pain

Title: Symphony of Pain  
Character: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader  
Series: Between the Moments (this is #6)  
Genre: Drama/Angst/Introspection  
Disclaimer: Fandom forthrightly disclaimed.  
Notes: This was for the Shakespearean Roulette Challenge, wherein I was given #31: "The fool doth think he is wise, and the wise man knows himself a fool." -As You Like It (v.i.22)

Written: September 23, 2011

* * *

It is to a symphony of pain that reality slides back into place and a choice is made. Pain crescendos around him like a thunderstorm, violent and beautiful and terrible all at once. He nearly buckles under it's magnificence and totality and fails to do what is needed.

Staggering, he blindly and willingly throws his burden as hard as he possibly can and then collapses against the railing. The railing is the only thing that keeps him from joining the Dark One as he stares down through a mask that is no longer his haven and now his prison.

The explosion comes not long after and he sits there, struggling just to breathe. Breathing as memories, suppressed for too long come unbidden and he remembers how he got here. Remember everything, fully, completely, as if he'd just lived it.

Remembers standing in the council meeting room on Coruscant and staring at children who had looked back at him with hope. Children whose deaths he was responsible for.

Remembers standing on a platform on a fiery planet, having a confrontation with his wife and his master, and not listening to either.

Remembers being left to die after being defeated by his Jedi Master and friend.

Remembers the moment when there was nothing left of the one thing he'd wanted to hold on to.

Remembers intervening in an arrest and that subsequent pledge, that moment when he'd first become that which he'd sworn to fight.

As the pain from the undirected Force lightning fades and he continues to struggle to breathe, hands pull him back from the edge and he finds himself looking through the mask up into the face of his son who is staring at him worriedly.

His son can not see it, but underneath the mask, he's smiling. If nothing else, he has done something right. Perhaps it is enough... enough, for redemption of himself. He wants to ask why his son wanted to fight for him, but the words never come...


End file.
